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Jessica: I just want to kind of
practice some coding challenges.

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That's what I like about it.

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It's just very fun, approachable,
but you're still learning a lot

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I had this idea to create a project
called the Black Excellence Music

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Project that,  highlighted musicians
in the jazz world and just promoting

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more diversity in those fields

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Eddie: Welcome to Episode
2 of the WebJoy podcast.

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I'm your host, Eddie.

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In this podcast, we interview guests
about their origin story and what

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makes them excited and joyful to
be part of the tech community.

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I hope you enjoy today's episode.

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"A fun, approachable
way" with Jessica Wilkins

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Hi, Jessica, how about you, share who
you are, what you do, where you work,

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brief introduction about yourself.

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If you will.

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Jessica: Sure.

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I'm happy to be here.

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My name's Jessica Wilkins.

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I'm based in Los Angeles, California,
and I'm a software developer

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at This Dot labs and I'm also a
technical writer for FreeCodeCamp

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I changed careers from
a classical musician.

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So before being in software, I
spent all my time,  performing,

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teaching, and recording.

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Since I'm been in LA there's
a big recording scene here.

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(laughing) so that was my life
just running all around Southern

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California and living that life.

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Then the pandemic hit and
everything obviously changed and

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it didn't go away anytime soon.

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Like I had thought and so I had an
idea for a project that I had started

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in June of 2020,  because race
relations were really bad at that time.

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There was George Floyd's murder that
we were going through and all of that.

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And then also COVID was just
really really, really bad at

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most places around the world.

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So tensions were just high.

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I had this idea to create a project called
the Black Excellence Music Project that,

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highlighted musicians in the jazz world
and just promoting more diversity in those

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fields and to bringing forth those stories
of musicians from past and present.

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So I decided to learn how to code
because I had all this free time

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now, since, COVID was just forced
us to all be at home pretty much.

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So I started just learning how the
code bounced around a different

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resources and landed on FreeCodeCamp.

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Started learning, HTML and CSS and
JavaScript and started to really enjoy it.

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And so the first year I bounce back
and forth between if I wanted to

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make a career change or not, but then
finally decided make that plunge.

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I did end up building the project there
and launching that and then making

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a version two, but then I decided
to switch careers for certain there.

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That's how I ended up here.

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Eddie: I love how, in the midst of a
really unfortunate time, with COVID,

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with all the tensions being high
because of such horrible decisions

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that were acted in our country that
you said what can I do about this?

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you found  a proactive way to uplift
people and, say, Hey, listen, I'm going to

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do what I can to create more visibility.

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So that people have something to look
to rather than being dragged down into

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the bad things that people are doing.

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Of course we need to address that, but
also to say, while people are looking

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at this what if we have a way to
uplift and raise those black voices so

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that people can see them and amplify
them and, really uplift the community

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in a season that was so difficult

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Jessica: Absolutely.

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Yeah,

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Eddie: I can't imagine
what that time was like.

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what do people have to kind of
break out of that heavy time?

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And I love that.

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You're like, let me bring a
little bit of inspiration, to

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that time to help people through.

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I think that's awesome.

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Jessica: Yeah, it just
came out of nowhere.

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Cause I was, getting all these messages
from people because one of the, I guess,

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good things that came out of COVID
was we were finally having a deeper

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conversation about lack of diversity
in many industries, not just in music.

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And it was talked about film
and television and whatnot.

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And so within the music industry,
specifically within the classical

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world, there really isn't a
lot of diverse representation

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for Black and Latino musicians.

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There've studies done about it,
and it's like as low as three and

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half percent, which is really low.

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It's been pretty steady for
the past, like decade or so.

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I had people messaging me on  Facebook
and Twitter asking me about resources

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to learn more about, black musicians
the classical world and jazz worlds.

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And so I started just sending
them all these different sites

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that I found over the years.

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And I was like, there should really just
be one site and it should have some games.

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It should have some
good teaching materials.

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I was like, I guess I'll just build it.

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And so that's where it came in.

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I was like, I guess
I'll learn how to code.

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And I kind of just went down that crazy
path and ended up loving it there.

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Eddie: That's so cool.

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I know a lot of people who are trying to
get into tech that I've met on Twitter.

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A lot of times they're trying to
figure out like, oh, what should I do?

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How should I improve my skills?

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And it's funny because one of the
biggest things I always come back

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to is what's something that you're
interested in that you wish existed

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and figure out how to build that.

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You may have to rely on grabbing
stuff from tutorials or stealing

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stuff from other websites you see,
but have a vision for what you wanna

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have and then figure out what skills
you need to be able to build that.

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Because your passion for what
you're building is what's gonna

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drive you to learn rather than.

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Just following a curriculum
because you wanna learn a thing.

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That can work, but it's also very
hard to stay passionate about it.

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It's a lot easier to fall the bandwagon.

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So I love that's
literally how you learned.

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It wasn't, I'm just gonna learn
HTML because you thought, Hey,

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I want this thing to exist.

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There's no other obvious way to have
it exist than to build it myself.

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So I'm gonna figure out
what I need to figure out.

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I love that.

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That's that's so awesome.

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Jessica: Yeah.

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There were a lot of bumps and bruises
along the way where it's like,

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okay, I guess we can't do that.

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Or I guess this doesn't work
and all that, but it's, it's all

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part of the learning process.

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I'm glad that I went through that
journey and I give the exact same advice

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to people that are getting started.

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Just find it a passion project of
yours and just start building it there.

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Eddie: Well, so, you shifted
away from music and into tech,

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amid COVID and all that stuff.

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You started learning it for this project,
but what kind of captivated you about

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tech beyond building this one project
as something that you wanted to keep

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diving into and that you wanted to make
this a sequence of jobs or a career.

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Jessica: Yeah.

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So as I started diving a little bit
deeper, I just love the aspect of the

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possibilities, what you can build.

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And I was like, oh, there's so many cool
music applications that you can build.

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I was thinking about all these problems
that I experienced as a musician.

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There should be an application.

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And also just by perception of
what is developer specifically

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within web applications?

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I think a lot of people, especially
non-technical people think, oh, build

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up a simple little page and whatnot.

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Why do we need a developer?

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We can just use Wix or something.

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Like, I don't know where all these
developers come in, but there's so

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much complexity when you're building
out a really cool application.

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So I had all these ideas and this is cool.

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If I could keep learning this
stuff and build a career, build

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some really cool projects.

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And so the potential of what you
could build  with these skills

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really attracted me to it.

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And the fact that it's always changing,
I didn't want to be in something that

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just, I learned it and it's okay,
well I'm not gonna grow anymore.

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I think that's one of the great
things about music is you're

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always learning new repertoire.

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You're always challenging yourself.

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You're always in these wacky,
crazy situations as a performer.

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So it never a dull moment
being a musician there.

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So that's what I really wanted
is to keep challenging myself and

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not just hit a level where it's
all right, I've learned everything

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and I'm just gonna cruise along.

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I want to keep growing and being
challenged and work on very unique,

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problems and provide solutions there.

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Eddie: That's really cool.

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That's a perspective I
haven't always heard a lot of.

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Well, you know, we're on this podcast
cuz we come together to talk about

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different things that bring us joy.

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And so I was just curious about,
what is a product, tool or community

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that you found that you really enjoy
using and brings you a lot of joy.

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Jessica: Yeah.

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So when I started using the past few
months is exercism, which is website

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where you just solve a whole bunch of
different coding challenges, but  it's

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different from a lot of the other ones
that are more, like computer science.

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We all know of  leet
code and stuff like that.

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If you're preparing for a job
and whatnot, but they're just

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also code wars and hacker ranks.

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But I really like exercism because
you could still focus on those problem

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solving challenges, but they make
it in a more fun, approachable way.

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So you're not just like, slogging
away being like, ah, binary,

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search trees and all this stuff.

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They come up with these like really
cute little fun problems, and

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they're still teaching a lot of
the basics and advanced concepts.

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So you can get yourself lost and
just solving all these problems.

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You're not trying to rack up
points or anything like that.

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You just go through the different
challenges  and there's so

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many supported languages too.

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So if you're picking up a new language
and you're just like, oh, I just want to

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kind of practice some coding challenges.

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That's what I like about it.

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It's just very fun, approachable, but
you're still learning a lot as opposed to

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sitting there going I gotta do this cause
I got a job interview coming up there.

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so that's what I really like about it and
that community is just, really friendly.

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I like communities that are friendly
atmospheres that are welcoming and not

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really focused on this ultra competitive
situation where  we're here to learn.

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And it's also open source.

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So if you wanted to contribute and build
your own challenges, then you could do

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that as well, which is kind of cool.

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So yeah, that's what drew me

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.
Eddie: I  had never heard of
this before you mentioned it.

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and checked it out when you told me
, Hey, this is what I want to talk about.

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And what's really cool that stuck
out to me is: I was actually just

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having a conversation with one
of my coworkers the other day.

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A lot of times, People can design
gamified systems to always be

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competitive and that's good and
everything, but not everyone.

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Like, I am not someone who tends
to like competitive things.

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It's okay.

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But it definitely doesn't
get me really excited.

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I actually like co-op stuff
more than competitive.

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and that's what stood out, what you
just said, like looking at it, it seems

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more like a co-op than a competition.

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You're not trying to beat people.

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And in fact, they have mentors to
help look at your code reviews and

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it's more like you're on a team than
you are trying to be the best on the

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leader board or something like that.

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Jessica: Exactly.

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You're not worried about like leveling
up or how many points you get.

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It's just let's go through these fun
challenges and they have that mentor

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program where people look at your
code and talk about ways you could

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optimize it, they also have a built-in
tool where they'll check your answer.

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And if you have a lot of extra repetition
or stuff like that, it'll make suggestions

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like, you have some repetition here.

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You might want to consider
refactoring this part.

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So you dive back in the challenge,
oh yeah, I guess I could refactor

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this here, make it cleaner.

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So it's fun there.

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It takes away that ultra
competitive, oh my gosh, I'm behind.

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Or I don't measure up to so-and-so.

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it's just, you're just going
through fun coding challenges there.

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Eddie: Nice.

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00:10:44,119 --> 00:10:47,574
How did you stumble acrossed it
and find out about it yourself.

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Jessica: Yeah, I think I
discovered on Twitter because

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someone else was talking about it.

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And at that point I was using some of
the other sites and I was like, oh, okay,

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what's cause it's such unique name too.

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I've never heard of that for
like a coding site there.

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So I clicked on it.

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Started working through it.

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I'm like, yeah, I really like this.

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I'm glad that I found it.

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So there's so many cool things
you can find on Twitter.

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Just poke it around and it's
like, oh, what's this, you know?

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Eddie: Yeah, I definitely have a list of
way too many things that I'm intending

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to check out one day cuz I see it on
Twitter and well if I don't save it now

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it's gonna disappear from my timeline.

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So I'll send that tweet
to a note on my phone.

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And then I tell myself, I'm gonna
check out that note one day, but,

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really it just keeps growing.

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It's probably got like 120 items on
it that still need to be looked at.

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Jessica: Right.

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Yeah, same here.

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I have a whole bookmark folder of
just programming resources that

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it  keeps growing and growing.

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I'll get to it eventually.

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( Eddie: laughing) Exactly.

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Well cool.

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What languages have you
tried out on exorcism?

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Jessica: Yeah.

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I've mainly been working with
JavaScript and then also playing

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around a little bit with TypeScript
and a little bit with Python there.

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And so they have a great range
of beginner, intermediate,

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"expert challenges" and whatnot.

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And so it's great if you're just picking
up another language, you're oh, okay.

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Yeah, let me go get started with
this and it's still engaging.

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They try to create these like
different stories with the

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problems that you're solving, just
to help keep you engaged there.

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So it's not just solve this problem.

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You'll be like two sentences or something.

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They'll give you an actual story.

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They're like, oh, can
that be makes sense there.

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So I like the engagement factor with.

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it.

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Eddie: Yeah.

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I think when I was looking at it,
that was one of the biggest things

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that popped up is that you have
this story or something to go into.

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Like for example, I just randomly
pulled up this medium one that

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is called robot name and it says:
Manage Robot Factory Settings.

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When a robot comes off the
factory floor, it has no name.

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The first time you turn on a
robot, a random name is Generated

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every once in a while, we need to
reset a robot back to its factory

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settings and the name gets wiped.

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So we need to respond with a new,
random name,  they should not

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follow a predictable sequence.

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And, that means you can end up
having collisions of the names.

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So your solution must ensure that
every existing robot has a unique name.

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So you're generating these unique
names, making sure that they don't

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match the other unique names, but
that they're actually random and not

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just a sequence of ABC or 1, 2, 3.

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So that's really cool.

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Like you actually feel like you have a job
and you're trying to accomplish something.

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Jessica: Right, right.

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And it just makes it way more fun.

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As opposed to just being like, all
right, just solve this abstract problem.

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You're like, oh no another one, you know?

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Eddie: Yeah.

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that's cool.

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Cuz definitely leet code and things
like that  is just very technical, no

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reason for what you're trying to do.

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It's just write an algorithm
that does this thing.

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And this is nice cuz it makes it feel
more like you're doing a real job.

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I guess have you ever run into anything
that's frustrating or any drawbacks?

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When you've tried to
use the website before?

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Jessica: Thankfully, no, I think they
have a pretty good user experience

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and it's nice and clean, simple user
interface there where you just dive into

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the challenge and on the site, I think
it's like the right-hand side panel.

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They have all the directions and the
different test cases you're like, okay,

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how are they testing this here and go.

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Oh, okay.

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Gotcha.

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So I think it's laid out quite nicely.

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Eddie: Awesome.

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Well, that's cool.

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So if it sounds interesting to anyone
listening, feel free to check out the show

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00:14:22,329 --> 00:14:27,414
notes, I've got a link to it,  in there,
so you can check it out and try it out.

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And if you want to continue learning more
of the language you're currently learning.

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Do that.

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If you've been curious about
another random language, they've

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got all sorts of languages.

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57 different programming languages.

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So there's a lot there to figure out.

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So you can grab a random
language you haven't used before

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and learned something new.

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As we wrap up, one thing
we always like to do is.

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Hear if there's anything that each
of the guests has that they'd like

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to share with the community that they
think might be helpful to the community.

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Jessica: Yeah.

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So I always love to
talk about FreeCodeCamp.

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That's where I got started
learning and then got involved

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with the open source projects and
started writing articles for them.

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It's a free platform where can
learn how to code and they focus

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on full-stack JavaScript as
well as Python and data science.

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So they have an interactive program
on their main website where you learn

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by building projects, which is the
best way to learn in my opinion, too.

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It's interactive.

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So you're not just sitting there
consuming hours and hours of videos.

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They'll give you a challenge and then
you start to slowly build out this site.

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So beginners have this great sense
of oh, okay, look what I'm building.

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They could see it, in real time, okay,
this is what I'm building and understand

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how all the pieces fit together.

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They also have a very
active YouTube channel.

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I think they have, like, 5 million
subscribers at this point on their

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YouTube channel and they covers
like everything with PHP and Ruby

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and Java and CS concepts, Math.

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They just have a whole bunch of
videos that you can go through, but

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they're really high quality videos.

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So whatever you wanna there, you
can check out the YouTube channel.

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I just like the community.

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It's very friendly and approachable.

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00:16:04,334 --> 00:16:06,314
Cause we have people from
all around the world.

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00:16:06,314 --> 00:16:09,924
I would probably say I think Quincy
who's the founder of FreeCodeCamp have

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00:16:09,924 --> 00:16:16,679
said that, the North American population
was maybe like 30%  or somewhere around

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00:16:16,679 --> 00:16:20,219
there, and so we have a lot of people
from parts of Africa and India and

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00:16:20,239 --> 00:16:24,279
other parts of Europe and Asia that
just wanna learn how to code and gain

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this skill set and transition jobs.

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so we all just try to help each other
out and answer each other's questions

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and that's what I like to be a part of is
just nice, friendly, helpful communities.

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I try to stay away from the
toxic environments if I don't

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want to be involved with that.

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So that's what I love about FreeCodeCamp

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Eddie: That sounds awesome.

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00:16:40,824 --> 00:16:45,594
I've definitely heard different people on
Twitter mention it over time, but, haven't

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00:16:45,594 --> 00:16:47,784
really interacted with it much myself.

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00:16:47,789 --> 00:16:48,719
So that's great to hear.

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00:16:48,719 --> 00:16:54,019
Not just that, it's got good information
to learn, but also it actually has a

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00:16:54,019 --> 00:16:55,759
good community and things like that.

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00:16:55,759 --> 00:16:58,759
We'll include a link to that
in the show notes as well.

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00:16:58,859 --> 00:17:02,669
Jessica, thank you so for coming
on and joining the podcast.

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00:17:02,674 --> 00:17:04,834
It's just been a pleasure
to talk to you really

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00:17:05,369 --> 00:17:05,579
Jessica: Yeah.

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00:17:05,599 --> 00:17:06,809
Thank you so much for having me.

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00:17:06,809 --> 00:17:07,529
This was fun.

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00:17:09,388 --> 00:17:12,028
Eddie: Thanks for
joining us for Episode 2.

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00:17:12,268 --> 00:17:16,828
"A fun, approachable way" with Jessica
Wilkins, you can find out more about

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00:17:16,828 --> 00:17:20,998
Jessica on her Twitter @codergirl1991.

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00:17:21,068 --> 00:17:25,508
You can find links to everything we talked
about in this episode, as well as a link

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00:17:25,508 --> 00:17:27,668
to Jessica's Twitter in the show notes.

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00:17:28,118 --> 00:17:31,988
If you enjoyed this episode, please
consider rating and reviewing it in

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00:17:31,988 --> 00:17:37,228
your favorite podcast directory and
follow us on Twitter @ WebJoyFM.

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00:17:39,045 --> 00:17:41,445
Thank you for listening
and have a great day.